More people are watching more videos online, mostly on YouTube, according to a new report.
In the U.S., Internet users watched 13.5 billion online videos in October, up 45 percent over last year, market-research firm comScore found. More than 147 million people, or 77 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience, watched videos online during the month.
It is probably not a surprise that ComScore found that more than 80 percent of people in the 18-to-34-year-old demographic watched videos online, a higher portion than any other age segment. They also spent more time watching online videos on average than others.
Google set a record during the month, attracting 100 million unique video viewers, which amounts to more than two out of every three online video viewers, comScore said. YouTube makes up the lion’s share of Google’s video offerings, with 99.5 million people watching 5.4 billion videos on YouTube.com during the month, according to the report.
That compares to Fox Interactive, which came in second place in the ranking of number of users during the month for attracting nearly 61 million unique viewers, comScore said. Yahoo, Microsoft, Viacom, and Hulu followed in the rankings.
Google users also watched far more videos than visitors to the other sites. On average, visitors to Google sites watched 53 videos. Visitors to Fox sites watched eight.
While user created videos on YouTube make up the bulk of online videos, many of the other sites in comScore’s top ten primarily show videos of content originally produced for television or the big screen. Content producers are increasingly offering their products online, although many are still trying to work out a business model for doing so that doesn’t cannibalize existing revenues.